by Outcast_Searcher » Fri 27 Dec 2019, 15:56:37
Speaking of things helping mitigate oil demand, in coming years, HEV's look more and more promising.
I was discussing that with my brother in law on Christmas, as supplying various parts to the Georgetown KY plant is his primary job, so he keeps up with broad Toyota tech trends pretty well.
He pointed out (and I just checked re the Toyota.com site), and feature for feature, the differential for the 2020 HEV RAV4 LE, is only roughly $1000 more than the pure ICE RAV4 LE, since the HEV gets several upgrades (to the XLE level) vs the ICE.
Now we're getting to a differential where as long as someone wants things like alloy wheels, for a $1000 difference, it doesn't take many years for the HEV to more than pay for itself. And with the former California warranty on the traction battery, 10 years and 150,000 miles is a hell of a replacement warranty, even for folks who DO drive 12 to 15 thousand miles a year.
He said this is due to it being the latest version of the hybrid technology, and the cost differential should be similar as that is rolled out to other models in coming years. In fact, at some point, perhaps it makes sense just to make hybrid STANDARD (and quit producing pure ICE models), helping the EPA requirements and the cost base for Toyota overall. Which of course would pressure other car makers to follow, in order to compete.
There will still be a hell of a lot of vehicles sold for at least a decade or two before they're all pure BEV's, so the more hybrids in the mean time, the better.
Oh, and now, really no downsides re convenience. No plugging in or range anxiety. No more compromising on a small trunk, as the redesigned cars do away with that issue. No more bad performance -- if anything, the hybrid performance tends to be between the basic 4 cylinder ICE, and the performance level ICE with a 6 cylinder, a turbo, etc.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.